Wow it was so unbelievable!! Here we were in the hopsital and as you can imagine the testing begins. Mom's arm and leg on the left side were not working at all. They were useless, and I felt useless to help her. Mom wakes up Monday AM and she supplies some comic relief. She says to me that she heard Paul snoring all night. I explain to her that it was the lady in the bed next to her. She is to have an MRI of her brain today and we will see what it shows. While waiting that afternoon for the MRI report and to see the doctor, Dr. Vu comes in and states that she has had a stroke on the right front part of her brain. Not good news! He explains that it is a "dry stroke" and that we have several choices for treatment, but he would like to have a 4 vessel angiogram the next day to determine exactly were the blockage could is. We were visiting her and next thing I know she has raised her left arm and is scratching her nose and then proceeds to lift her hand all the way to the top of her head. Suzannah and I were about to shout and do a dance. We had just witnessed our first miracle. I cannot express to you how excited we were. Later that day we are moved to a private room. I have asked Dr. Vu if he would consult Dr. Shumate as mom's neurologist and he said that he would.
We don't leave her side and we don't want to. It was so hard to let them take her to have the angiogram. The staff at GCH was wonderful they let me stay with her until they took her in for the angiogram, I did not want to leave her, I was scared and she was scared, but we had to know what we were dealing with. It seemed like a long time waiting for her to be done and finally they called us. The radiologist calls me into the computer room and shows me the film of her angiogram. It is very evident as you see the dye go through the vessels in her head that on the right side the dye/blood does not flow past a certain point. It is flowing and then abruptly stops. It does not feed the blood vessels past that point and this is the area of her brain that affects her motor skills on the left side. So now we know for sure that it is a large right frontal stroke.
Dr. Vu comes to speak to us and tells us that the treatment might be to give her a blood thinner, but that could cause her to have a bleed, which would be worse than the stroke she has already had, but not doing anything could cause her to have another "embolic" stroke. He defers to Dr. Shumate and we will get to see him later tonight.
Dr. Shumate, what a nice guy, a great doctor and my friend. He comes in and sees Mom and tells that yes she has had a large stroke. He tells us that it will take about six weeks before the swelling could really begin to go away. He explains the situation to us and it is decided that she will be stgarted on aspirin and Plavix and that we will not go the full blown blood thinner route.
I can't begin to tell you at this point all of the experiences that we had, from thenurse trying to give her pills in applesauce while she is lying down and almost choking her to taking her for a brium swallow and not even having a operating suction machine when you are giving someone that can't swallow several different thick liquids.
Of course, Mom provides us with some comic relief. She is eating mashed potatoes and reaches across her plate for something. She gets gravy on her forearm and before I can get her a napkin, she licks it off her arm. It was sooooo funny. Leave it to my mom to always make us feel better even when she doesn't feel well.
Next stop: Healthsouth Rehab
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